According to Professor Howard, a former president of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal and former acting judge of the District Court of NSW, “Lismore is one of the regional communities where the use of crystal methamphetamine is of particular concern.”

They call it the “field of dreams” scenario – build it and they will come, and they have been doing just that in Tweed Heads and Coffs Harbour where the St Vincent de Paul Society, a.k.a. Vinnies, has developed weekday drop-in centres offering a range of services to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so

In the border location, where it is the only such centre in a highly populated area, Fred’s Place – named after the Society’s founder, Frederic Ozanam – is now seeing more than one hundred people a day through its doors. While registration is requested, anonymity is respected and no IDs are checked, hence a number of visitors from “Mars’” and clients claiming to be “Superman” and “Mickey Mouse”. Mental health issues are relatively common amongst the homeless population.

In our earlier article we described the concept of “passing the baton” when talking about transfers of patient care. All patients come from their communities and to their communities they shall return. In this transition from tertiary hospital to primary care, they benefit from timely, safe, effective clinical handover as defined in the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.

It was drafted by eight Members of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, following a reference from the Health Minister. Over several months it held interstate hearings, received 138 expert submissions and 30 exhibits, and considered key previous studies, including 318 NHMRC-supported research grants relating to sleep or sleep disorders from 2000-2018.

It seems fair to ask, given the exhaustive (and expensive) nature of the exercise, whether all this work tells us anything new. The temptation is to suggest not, as clinicians and the broader community seem well aware that, “Sleep is a fundamental human need and, along with nutrition and physical exercise, it is one of the three pillars of good health.”

As everyone agreed, “Sleep is a crucial element in the maintenance of health and wellbeing.”

This study of the nature, causes and possible cures of microbial infections is as complex as the human body itself but far leaner than the recent works of Siddhartha Mukherjee (The Emperor of All Maladies, and The Gene) whose jacket quote is effusive: “An amazing informative book that changes our perspective on medicine, microbes, and our future.”